Bali. I Highly Recommend It.

When I was a little kid, I once got a prize in my cereal box that was some money from Indonesia. So naturally I had to go there to spend it. Unfortunately I have no idea where that money is, but as the exchange rate is 13,000 Indonesian Rupiah to 1 US dollar, it wouldn't have made much difference. Anyway, my first vacation away from Saudi Arabia was to Bali. And it was well worth the price of admission.

I had no plans except to drink some beers, do some diving, and lie around on the beach, and forget about Saudi Arabia, not quite in that order. I only had six full days there, so I had to make them all count.

My first stop after leaving the Kingdom was Jakarta. I had a three hour layover there before continuing on to Denpasar.

Boom! Not even part of the six days and I made it count. 3 beers, an hour and forty-five minute flight, and a 45 minute taxi ride later I was at my hotel, La Taverna. That means "The Taverna" in English. It was a pretty nice room and way bigger than I needed, though I was sharing it with the cockroaches. Not ideal roommates, but better than cobras, which apparently are found on this island.

I stayed in Sanur, which is a nice quiet beach town where almost all of the restaurants close by 10 pm. This does not work for me when I am trying to run an all you can eat spring roll marathon because I'm starving after a long day of travelling. I did manage to wander around a bit and find an open place with some spring rolls that just so happened to also be giving out free shots of arak. Arak is a local alcoholic drink that apparently has been killing people because it is sometimes made with methanol in less than reputable establishments. I had a feeling the good folks at Randy's Cafe wouldn't let me down. And I'm still here to write about it, so I guess that kerosene taste was all in my head. Eager to start my first day early, I wandered back to my hotel, watched some Archer and caught some z's.

Day 1 was spent just walking around town and setting up the rest of my week. I found a dive shop that gave me 25% off for being a PADI instructor and signed up for a couple of days of diving. I also hired a guy to drive me up the volcano and back, stopping at various tourist traps along the way. 

This happened on Day 2 and included a Barong and Kris native dance / play thing as shown HERE. We also stopped at an artist studio where I'm sure I overpayed for a painting, but don't mind because I like it and it was only 50 bucks after I talked the lady down from $300, so who cares. Then I was taken to a restaurant with a view of the volcano that was the worst food and most expensive ($10) I had had at this point. I did mind this. I found this completely unacceptable and told the driver not to fuck with me any more when it came to food. He seemed remorseful, but only slightly so. Too short of a trip to get upset about things, but I wanted him to know I wasn't buying his ridiculous line about this restaurant being more hygienic that the one I had pointed out down the street. Few things in this world, gastro-related, conjure up the thought of hygiene less than an open air buffet in Indo.

So on we went, enjoying the ride and stopping for occasional pics and purchases of wooden Buddha statues. Not one of the good ones made of fine quality heavy wood, but a lightweight, mass-produced Buddha that was probably made by a machine and not the son of the guy who sold it to me. Though I didn't care to argue with him on that point. He seemed nice and he took this picture of me. So why should I be upset that he's trying to make a buck by selling me crap with a 1000% mark-up.

 From here it was off to the Monkey Forest. I had been told is was touristy and sucked by multiple sources that had never been there, but who in their right mind passes up an opportunity to go to a sacred monkey forest for less than two dollars? The monkeys have free run of the Sacred Monkey Forest and are not to be messed with. They take what they want and there is little you can do about it. I caught one trying to dig into my pocket when my head was turned and another tried a couple of times to take my water bottle. Most were content with petty theft and eating fruit and doing cute monkey things as pictured HERE. 

We've all seen monkeys pick bugs off each other and eat them and it's kind of cute, kind of gross, whatever. No big deal. But some were, how should I say...a little different. No, that's not how to say it. I'll be blunt. I saw a monkey with its face in another monkey's ass going to town like there was no tomorrow. And I only paid $2 for this.

This was right in the middle of the park with families and children around. This monkeys had no shame. Nobody seemed to notice these two except for myself and a few guys that worked there. I said, "Get a room, monkeys!" and the one with the facefull looked at me like, "this is my room. Get the hell out of my house!" Then he / she went right back to town on what was apparently some delicious monkey butt. It is with this wonderful scene that I shall end this story. I hope you're not too offended to read the next episode of "Animals in Bali". It's all about sea creatures and comes with lots of cool pictures. Some of which I was assured were going to, in the words of the Australian marine biologist / dive instructor, "give a roomful of biologists back home multiple orgasms".